Winter Olympic

The ninth visit of the Coordination Commission for the Torino 2006 Games began with a meeting between Mercedes Bresso President of the Piemonte Regional Council, Jean-Claude Killy and Gilbert Felli from IOC. Their conversation lasted twenty minutes, and included top TOROC and IOC officials, and it discussed the main issues of the visit by the special IOC body. At the end of the first day, the Commission expressed its satisfaction with the state of the art and the progress of the organisation, and invited the Commission to continue to work profitably right up to the inauguration of the Games, to solve any remaining problems. The facilities are almost ready for the events of Torino 2006, both in the Olympic Mountains and in the city, to the point that anyone observing them can already imagine the exploits of the Olympic athletes. Jumps, acrobatics, sprints and falls, in other words the stories that for a moment flashed in front of the eyes of the members of the IOC Coordination Commission that visited the venues today.

Carlo Sibille (Agenzia Torino 2006) and Jean Claude Killy (© La Presse)

During the Commission’s ninth visit to Torino, Jean-Claude Killy, who leads the body monitoring TOROC’s activities, declared with satisfaction “the work is proceeding well”. And he added, “The quality of the stadiums is really extraordinary, as is that of the villages and all the other structures.” Today, before getting back to work, the commission will report on the facilities visited, and their comments are sure to be positive. “I was struck,” Killy underlined, “by the way that the designers of the various works have succeeded in reconciling old and new, mixing traditional Italian architecture with new trends and some of the most advanced technologies around; take the Palavela figure skating and short track facility, for example, or the Oval, the speed skating stadium which is still under construction.”

SALT LAKE CITY 2002

XIX Olympic Winter Games

The Salt Lake City Olympic Winter Games saw the expansion of the Olympic programme to 78 events, including the return of skeleton and the introduction of women's bobsleigh. Athletes from a record 18 nations earned gold medals. Canadian teams won both the men's and women's ice hockey tournaments. Ole Einar Bjoerndalen earned gold medals in all four biathlon events and Samppa Lajunen in all three Nordic combined competitions. Alpine skier Janica Kostelic won three gold medals and one silver. Simon Ammann scored unexpected victories in both individual ski jump events. Speedskater Claudia Pechstein earned her third straight gold medal in the 5,000m race and also won at 3,000m. By taking the silver medal in singles luge, Georg Hackl became the first person in Olympic history to earn a medal in the same individual event five times in a row. Short track speedskater Yang Yang (A) became the first Chinese athlete to win a gold medal at the Winter Games. Competing in the women’s bobsleigh, Vonetta Flowers became the first black athlete to earn winter gold, while ice hockey player Jarome Iginla followed as the first black male winner.

Participation:
77 National Olympic Committees (Nations)
2,399 athletes (886 women, 1,513 men)
78 events
22,000 volunteers
8,730 media (2,661 written press, 6,069 broadcasters) Winter Olympic Tickets can be found above. And there really good seats.

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